To My Dear and Loving Husband by Anne Bradstreet

Analysis

Bradstreet was a loving wife as this poem shows. It is perhaps her most well-known and most famous poem today. "To My Dear and Loving Husband" contains couplet rhymes, anaphora in the first three lines, the iambic pentameter, and metaphors.

This poem is a lot like her other works. She talks about who she is and how she is better than others. Instead of talking about how she is better in her religion, she is saying she is a better woman than the others. "Compare with me, ye women, if you can." Is it possible? No! Bradstreet is obviously better, or at least, she thinks so.

Poem

To My Dear and Loving HusbandBy Anne Bradstreet
If ever two were one, then surely we.
If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
If ever wife was happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
Nor ought but love from thee give recompetence.
Thy love is such I can no way repay.
The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
Then while we live, in love let's so persever
That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Published in 1678.